What is the Arab equivalent of the phrase “peace in our time”?

President Obama, who hectored Egypt‘s President Hosni Mubarak to transfer power “right now,” suddenly doesn’t want to get involved when it comes to the dictators running the Islamic republic.

The administration argues that taking a firm stand on regime change would hand Tehran a pretext for cracking down on pro-democracy protesters. It took the same approach during the 2009 protests, and the result was that Tehran’s thugs ruthlessly suppressed demonstrators and blamed the United States for instigating them. Iran‘s leaders will do the same again no matter what Mr. Obama says. The president has nothing to lose by standing up for freedom, especially because the Iranian regime really needs changing.

The Apologizer-in-Chief has nothing to lose, except for one thing: the left's raison d'être, i.e., its fairy tale view of the world that there are no enemies on this planet, that all is based on misunderstandings which can be remedied with dialogue, and that if only the world would agree to come together, it would see that, indeed, there are no enemies — except, of course, for those cynical and mistrustful beings that are America's clueless combative conservatives.

On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to revise his comment that the Muslim Brotherhood was “largely secular.” … Mr. Clapper … also maintains that the group is riven with factions and includes “a younger, more liberal wing who is more inclined to work through the secular political process.” This is in the great tradition of the hunt for the “moderate extremists,” which was a common liberal pastime during the Cold War that led to bad policy decisions every time.